If you have an upto date version of Whatsapp you will now be able to see if the message you’re receiving is being forwarded from another conversation. Just above the message there will be an icon accompanied by the text ‘forwarded.’ This will help differentiate between messages actually typed out and forwarded as received.

What’s the point?

Whatsapp introduced the feature in order to combat people who spam other groups and to try and control the spread of fake news. Whatsapp’s intentions are good but I don’t really see how this will stop someone from forwarding something and then claiming it’s from a legitimate source. Maybe if you could trace the origins of the message but then again that’s probably illegal.

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Where I do see hope is in relation to spam messages. Maybe, if you accuse a user of spamming other users Whatsapp will be able to check the number of people a user forwarded a particular message and then decide whether or not to take action on said user.

Minor hiccup…

Though this is a welcome feature the only problem is that if someone decides to copy and paste a message instead of forwarding it will not be reported as a forwarded message. This makes the feature more redundant because, in essence, people can just bypass the entire feature with a simple trick. It will be interesting to see if Whatsapp can actually bring this feature to messages that have been copied and pasted within the application.

What do you think? Will this feature deter users from spreading fake news or spamming other users?

WhatsApp Messenger is a cross-platform mobile messaging app which allows mobile phone users to exchange messages without having to pay for Short Message Services costs. WhatsApp Messenger application is compatible with different mobile phone models such as iPhone, BlackBerry, Android, Windows Phone and Nokia. The... Read More About WhatsApp